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Helen Spencer-Oatey What Is Culture

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One of the most important things that I learned in the class so far has to do with culture. More specifically I had no idea how to define it properly until now. Culture is so much more than I first thought, it has to do with religion, language, history, nationality, customs, food, clothes, and so much more. I realize that this is not an exhaustive list but it shows some of the things that culture is. One definition on culture will not suffice, there are many ways that it can be described and everyone has something to add. One of the ways that I learned to understand its meaning is through the article What is Culture? by Helen Spencer-Oatey. The author decided to show multiple viewpoints of culture though quotes rather than give one specific …show more content…

Since culture is different based on the person you ask it was great to see a collection of perspectives. Even though culture should not be bound to one sentence, it does make it easier to explain. Culture is learned behavior that is specific to a group of people but is subject to change overtime. To take it one step further, culture differs from personality in that it is not specific to an individual, and differs from human nature in that culture is not universal and inherited. Culture is significant because it forms our identity and allows us to connect with others similar to us. People can grow up together with the exact same surroundings but their experience can be totally different. Even twins who grew up with almost same experiences are completely different. Culture is learned so …show more content…

This is the process that my parents and I went through when moving countries, but the process was unalike since the magnitude of time spent was significantly different. Another thing that I saw was interesting was that cultural diffusion is a selective process. This was completely true in my case since I still hold on to some of the things from my culture. This article was eye opening to me since I could see the processes going on, but could not quite explain it or name it. This article explained culture though different quotes so if there was one you didn’t agree with there were others that were more helpful. While I have no immediate plans to move to another country, I can use my experience to better be equipped for the cultural change if it

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